Variety
April 18 2010
You Don’t Know Jack
(Movie — HBO, Sat. April 24, 9 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY
‘You Don’t Know Jack’
Filmed in New York and Detroit by Bee Holder, Cine Mosaic and
Levinson/Fontana and presented by HBO Films. Executive producers,
Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Glenn Rigberg, Tom Fontana, Barry
Levinson; producer, Scott Ferguson; director, Levinson; writer, Adam
Mazer.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian – Al Pacino
Janet Good – Susan Sarandon
Geoffrey Fieger – Danny Huston
Margo Janus – Brenda Vaccaro
Neal Nicol – John Goodman
A perfect marriage of character and star, "You Don’t Know Jack" is a
marvelous fact-based account of an engrossing story, creatively gorged
with an embarrassment of riches. Al Pacino disappears into a
remarkable sound- and look-alike performance as Dr. Jack Kevorkian,
the so-called "Dr. Death" who transformed medically assisted suicide
into an all-consuming crusade. The movie, however, is filled with
moments both poignant and funny, while still managing to be
thought-provoking about the ethics of euthanasia. Throw in fine
supporting work from Brenda Vaccaro and Danny Huston in particular,
and "Jack" is simply to die for.
The Pacino-HBO relationship previously yielded pay dirt for "Angels in
America," which cast the actor in another showy role as the
self-hating homosexual and virulent anti-communist Roy Cohn. Kevorkian
is a somewhat different but no less fascinating animal — one who
insists in a "60 Minutes" interview that he’s not a fanatic, merely a
zealot.
The movie chronicles Kevorkian’s life through the 1990s, after he had
already committed himself to using his self-devised "Mercitron" to end
the lives of those seeking his assistance as opposed to taking people
off life support, a process that he deems "inhumane."
Kevorkian is surrounded by an intriguing roster of characters,
including his sister Margot (Vaccaro), friend and
sometimes-collaborator Neil (John Goodman) and the head of the local
Hemlock Society, Janet Good (Susan Sarandon). He also meets up with an
ambitious, glib, publicity-hungry attorney, Geoffrey Fieger (Huston,
under a Monkees fright-wig), who relishes getting Kevorkian acquitted
of whatever charges Michigan prosecutors bring against him.
Directed by Barry Levinson from Adam Mazer’s screenplay, the movie
makes excellent use of grainy video footage featuring Kevorkian
interviewing his patients, which lends an air of both authenticity and
weight to the proceedings. Many are remarkably businesslike about
their determination to die on their own terms.
It’s Pacino, however, who grabs our attention from the first frame and
never lets go, capturing the strange cadence in Kevorkian’s voice and
his irritating personality — rendering him, as more than one person
suggests, perhaps the wrong spokesman for a righteous cause. Seeing
the actor cut loose when Kevorkian foolishly seeks to defend himself
in court can’t help but evoke memories of "And Justice for All ¦ " —
although in this case, it’s the defendant who’s out of order.
Impeccably shot and accompanied by a fine Marcelo Zarvos score, "Jack"
is precisely the kind of movie that only HBO, at this point, seems
interested in doing: The channel’s longform occupies a realm that
embraces movie stars, serious subject matter and big historical
material — from Winston Churchill to the 2000 election recount —
where feature distributors fear to tread, and basic cablers Hallmark
and Lifetime can’t afford to go.
Kevorkian’s story is such that it could easily have been exploited or
played as farce. To its credit, "Jack" finds the absurdity in the
situation without ever crossing those lines.
During a prison stay, Kevorkian boasts that he can "go weeks without
food, like Gandhi." Pacino, by contrast, clearly recognizes the big,
juicy meal laid out in front of him by this peculiar character, and
it’s a pleasure watching him greedily consume it.
Camera, Eigil Bryld; production designer, Mark Ricker; editor, Aaron
Yanes; music, Marcelo Zarvos; casting, Ellen Chenoweth. 135 MIN.
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